


Above The Clouds

by red_starshine



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters (Cartoon), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Established Relationship, F/M, Flying, Human/Monster Romance, Post-Season 3 (Trollhunters), Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 00:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15740622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_starshine/pseuds/red_starshine
Summary: Walter takes Barbara for a night-time flight above Arcadia Oaks.





	Above The Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since I wrote something so unabashedly fluffy...
> 
> The title is from Electric Light Orchestra's 'A New World Record' album.

Walter waited for Barbara on top of the roof of her house, horned head tilted back to look up at the clouded night-time sky.

The window to Barbara's bedroom slid open, and Barbara cautiously stepped out onto the roof. Walter reached for her hand as she slowly stood up on wobbly legs. His large wings automatically spread out to adjust for the shift in balance.

"Careful," he said, moving towards her. 

"The forecast tonight is just overcast. It's not supposed to rain, so hopefully nobody will see us before we get up to the clouds," Barbara said. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, listening to the beams of the roof creak underneath her. "I should probably look into replacing the roof soon if the two of us are going to be up here a lot. It doesn't seem too sturdy, does it?" She was fully aware she was babbling, but found herself unable to stop. "I mean, I know you're supposed to replace the roof every twenty or thirty years or so, but I thin--"

“Barbara," Walter cut her off, his raspy voice as gentle as he could make it, "you don't need to worry. We're only going to be up here for a moment. And even if your roof does decide it's going to suddenly cave in tonight, I'd catch you.”

"Yeah." She nodded. "Okay. All right."

"Are you ready?"

“Remind me again why we couldn't have started from the yard?”

Walter smirked slightly. “It's easier for me to catch the wind from up here.”

Barbara sighed, glancing down at the yard below them. Although she knew that Walter wouldn't let her fall off the roof, it didn't stop her brain from obsessing over just how far off the ground the two of them were.

She'd be even farther from the ground in a few moments.

“We can go down to the yard if you'd like,” said Walter, noticing how uncomfortable Barbara looked. “Or we can wait for another night, if you're not feeling up for it. I wouldn't mind.”

Barbara shook her head, pulling her glasses off and tucking them into the pocket of her capris. “No, I want to do this. I want to go flying with you when our lives aren't in danger.” She smiled up at him, squinting slightly. Without her glasses, Walter was a very large, green blurry blob with two luminous splotches of yellow, and more importantly, she couldn't make out the ground. “I didn't really get a chance to enjoy it last time.”

“That's true enough,” said Walter with a rueful smile. “Stalklings have an annoying tendency to ruin the mood.”

Barbara wrapped her arms around Walter's neck, lacing her fingers together. She closed her eyes and let out a breath, letting the tension and anxiety leach out from her body. Opening her eyes, she gazed into Walter's, faintly glowing in the darkness. “I'm ready.”

Walter's arms encircled her, one clawed hand resting on her shoulder and the other pressing into the small of her back. She felt his stone body tense, a slight rush of air as his wings snapped open, and then he leapt off from the roof of the house with her in his arms.

Her stomach dropped as her feet left the roof, like she was at the top of a roller coaster, staring down the length of track leading down into a loop. It was quickly replaced by a rush of exhilaration as Walter soared over the tops of the other houses lining her street, heading for the privacy of the clouds. Wind whistled past her ears as Walter's large wings beat in a steady, almost hypnotic, rhythm. There was a brief blur of whiteness as they passed through the cloud cover.

Barbara loosened one hand from Walter's neck to reach into her pocket for her glasses. Placing them back on, she gasped.

A blanket of puffy clouds lay underneath her, appearing as soft as cotton. Street-lamps and headlights from the town below lit the bottom of the clouds gold. Hanging above them was the full moon, larger than she'd ever seen before, casting a bright, silvery glow over them. The stars twinkled around them in the midnight-blue sky, and she had a thought, absurd as it was, that if she reached out for the stars, they would be close enough for her to touch. It was a magical, breathtaking view.

Best of all, not a stalkling in sight.

Barbara let out a quiet, contented sigh. “Oh yeah, this is so much better than last time.”

Walter gave an amused laugh. Pressed against him, she could feel it rumble inside his stone chest. Both of his hands had migrated down to her waist. He carefully shifted her position so that she was facing outwards, his hands wrapped securely across her stomach.

Barbara spread her arms out, feeling the wind lightly brush over and underneath her fingers. It was like Walter's wings were an extension of her own body. She could nearly feel the wings flap, stretching out to their fullest, shifting slightly for the best angle to glide along the wind.

“When I was a kid, I always loved the dreams where I could fly,” she said to Walter, glancing back at him. “This is amazing! It's just like I always imagined it would be.”

He grinned back at her, her enthusiasm contagious. “I'd almost forgotten what this was like. You know, before the museum it'd been years since I've last used my wings.”

“Why's that?” said Barbara. If she'd had wings, she would've found an excuse to use them at every available opportunity.

Walter was quiet for a moment, just long enough for Barbara to wonder if she'd inadvertently wandered into a sensitive issue for him. There was still so much she was oblivious to when it came to changelings and trolls, although she was trying to learn for both Walter and Jim.

Finally, Walter gave a shrug. “Nothing overly dramatic. I stayed in my human form for most of the time and was just never in a situation where I needed to use them. To be honest, I was slightly worried in the museum that they wouldn't come when I needed them.”

“I'm glad they did.” Barbara idly ran a finger along one of the thin grooves in his arm, tracing the line from wrist to elbow, eliciting a shuddery breath from Walter.

Carefully turning back to face Walter, she slowly moved her finger up his arm, brushing against the three curving lines carved into his upper arm, one after the other, before moving to one of the short slashes beneath his collar bone. Barbara pressed the palm of her hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall.

Barbara closed her eyes and gently kissed his cheek, her warm lips pressing against living stone. The steady rhythm of Walter's wings abruptly stuttered and the two of them plummeted  several feet, drawing out a shriek of exhilaration from Barbara as her feet dipped into the clouds.

Walter brought them back up, chuckling lightly under his breath. The smallest hint of a smug smile was on his lips when Barbara looked up at him.

"You did that on purpose?" she said in mock outrage, unable to hide her grin. "Oh, you are a bad, bad troll, Walt."

"Couldn't be helped. I was distracted," he protested, struggling and failing to keep a neutral face.

"By just one little peck on the cheek?” Barbara kissed him again. "Some big, scary monster you turned out to be."

“In my own defense, you are...very distracting,” said Walter with an unashamed grin, his cheeks turning a slightly darker shade of green.

Barbara smirked. Her hand reached for one of the curling locks of silver hair at the nape of his neck, gently twirling it around one finger. “I know. I'm terrible, aren't I?”

“The absolute worst, Barbara.”


End file.
